New Jersey Deciding Whether Or Not To Lessen PIP Reforms

Many states are thinking about dialing back some of their auto insurance reforms. One of these states is New Jersey. The governor of the state, Chris Christie has stated that he thinks that something needs to be done to reduce the reforms.
The state has an issue with rising auto insurance premium rates. Many officials in the state have said that the reason for the increase in rates is due to PIP reforms.
PIP stands for personal injury protection and it helps to pay for medical care for automobile accident victims. One issue that keeps coming up is that medical clinics and hospitals are inflating the costs of this care. This costs auto insurance providers much more money so they pass the buck onto their policy holders.
In August, new policy rules were introduced to try to tackle the issue. One idea was to limit the amount of money that could be charged for medical care. However, this did not sit very well with members of the medical community. Specialists such as neurosurgeons and anesthesiologists stated that if the amount of funds available for the care became limited then patients would not get the treatment that they need.
The rules sparked many doctors and surgeons to write checks to the Republican State committee. In all, more than $76,000 was raised to try to get the new rules eliminated. The doctors were successful and the rules were re-written so that the doctors got what they wanted. However, many insurance officials have said that it will still allow hospitals and surgeons to over bill insurers for the services that are rendered.
Now, basically surgeons have the right to establish their own prices for medical treatments and insurers have no leeway. It is very hard to be able to fight the current system when all people have to do is write checks and get what they want from their state politicians.
Some hospitals were overcharging by 3,000% for surgeries. This kind of over inflation is hurting drivers all the time. New Jersey ranks at number three on the list of highest insurance premiums and this needs to change as soon as possible.
Currently, drivers in the state pay more than $1,100 dollars each year for their automobile insurance coverage. Approximately 25% of this money goes to PIP claims.
This means that being able to create more PIP reforms would serve drivers and insurance companies. However, with the intense amount of resistance from members of the medical community, these rules have a hard time getting passed.
Surgeons and other doctors have a huge card to play on this issue. If they face a price cap for their services then they might not want to treat people so patients would suffer.
There needs to be a fair system in place to make sure that surgeons and doctors get paid accordingly. However, at the same time, the system needs to respect auto insurance companies and policy holders so that no one is being taken advantage of.